I was overwhelmed by all the sweet comments and emails I got from you guys on my pantry project. It's so exciting to know that I'm not the only one who delights in things like organized canned goods!
Quite a few of you said you were inspired to take on your own pantry organization (which is awesome!) and others felt like you had no idea where to start and needed some pointers. So this post is my attempt to document the process I used to get my pantry under control. I am not a professional organizer by any means but these are the steps I took. They worked for me with a walk-in pantry but they would apply to a reach-in pantry just as well.
Be warned, this is a monster of a post. So settle in!
I'm not going to go into things like measuring your space or picking out which shelves to use. The amazing people at The Container Store can help you with all that. In my case, my friend Nicole of On My Agenda deserves all the credit for picking out the various fixtures and shelving I used. But there are a few things you need to do before you head out to plan/buy your shelving and certainly some things you need to do after you've installed the shelving and are putting your pantry back together. Hopefully this post can help you with that.
I divided my pantry project into two steps.
Step 1: Physical Organization - the "what goes where" part of things
Step 2: Visual Harmony - the "prettifying" part of things
If you're anything like me, you'll want to skip right to the prettifying stage because, let's be honest, that's the most fun. You must resist those urges and know that you can never really, fully attain step 2 without first completing step 1.
So, let's begin! The first part of this "what goes where" stage is figuring out what you've got in there. It's not going to be fun. Just know that going in. Use this opportunity to wipe down the walls, vacuum and maybe even paint. Just because it's a pantry doesn't mean it can't be pretty and you'll be shocked at how happy a little hint of color can make you. Of course if you're ripping out existing shelving and starting over you'll want to do all of the above plus fill in the holes left from your old shelving.
CATEGORIZE
Take everything out of your pantry and place it in a separate "staging" area. It helps if this is an area that you don't mind looking like a bomb hit it for a couple of days. Trust me, doing this on your kitchen counter top is NOT a good idea. The mess will drive you insane and you will rush to get your counter space back, thus making rash decisions about what should go back into the pantry. I used our dining room as the staging area. As terrible as it sounds, you need to live with the piles of things for a little bit so you can start to digest what you have, what you can get rid of and what should live somewhere other than the pantry entirely.
So yes, I spent the better part of a two days (during the baby's naps) emptying this into my dining room.
Begin to identify and sort what you have into categories. My categories looked something like this:
-baking goods
-canned goods
-rices
-pastas
-paper products
-serving pieces
-snacks
-small appliances
-seasonal decor
-craft supplies & 1/2 complete craft projects
EDIT
Take a step back and look at your piles. Be honest with yourself about just how much you need. I know it's tempting to stock up on paper towels when they're on sale, but where exactly are you going to keep all 50 rolls? Just because something is BOGO doesn't mean you need to buy it by the case (unless you have ancillary pantry space in which case knock yourself out stocking that bomb shelter!) In my opinion, a pantry is for stuff you need to have on hand. If you have something you only use once or twice a year, it probably doesn't need to take up value space in your pantry. Which brings me to the next step...
PURGE
I was honestly shocked to see what had ended up at the back of some of my shelves. Canned goods past their "sell by" date, specialty items that I actually never use and things that just plain old had no business being in my pantry. My glue gun, gift wrapping supplies and 200 votive candles (yes, I said 200...) did not need to be in there. They just ended up in there because there was previously not a place for each thing. Therein lies your goal. If you can organize to the point where there is a spot for everything, you'll be much less likely to throw your gift wrapping supplies in there, for example, because there simply won't be a spot for them (and no, the floor does not count as a spot!)
Purge, purge, purge! Be relentless. I had enough serving pieces and glass items to run a small catering business. If you have the space, dedicate some of it to items that you use more regularly (or that just make you happy to look at like these for me). But, for example I had this AND this. Yes, they are different but do I really need both? The answer is no. Look at your stuff with that same discerning eye then start packing up the car for a trip (or in my case trips...as in three) to Goodwill.
You're almost ready to put everything back together! Before you head out to buy shelving spend a few minutes looking at the categories of things you'll be storing in your new pantry. Plan to store your items by these categories. Pastas with pasta, snacks with snacks, canned goods with canned goods (and once you get them up on the shelf you can further sort by soups, broths, tomatoes, etc). It makes locating things when cooking and putting away groceries far easier for you and your family.
Finally, is there one category of stuff you have a ton of? For me, that category was baking supplies. I could have stored them all on a shelf together but I decided to use a mobile cart to hold not only my supplies but my mixer.
I don't use it every day but when I do, I love having everything on hand. Maybe for you, that thing is a bread maker or an ice cream maker. You might not use it all the time, but when you do, wouldn't it be nice to have it all together?
Because I was using easily customizable elfa shelving, it wasn't as critical that I measure out what I would be storing but it does help to know the height of the tallest thing you want to store in your pantry. Keep this height on hand when planning your shelf spacing. For me it was our small appliances (specifically our juicer seen below on the far left) that dictated the positioning of the bottom shelf.
So now you've installed your shelving (remember, all the way to the ceiling!), made your trips to Goodwill and are ready to put everything back together. Obviously you'll want to place the things you use most often within arm's reach and the stuff you use less often up high.
Now you are ready to enter Step 2 - prettifying!
The key to visual harmony in your pantry (or any space for that matter) is to think in terms of symmetry and consistency (in shape, in color, or in both). Everything looks better when organized by this principal. Check out the queen of organization herself, Martha Stewart's studio craft closet.
Who knows what's in those bins?! A ton of crap probably. But it doesn't matter. The repeated shape of those bins (and the dress forms) is very pleasing to the eye. Everything from books to canned tomatoes looks better this way.
You must apply this same principal to your pantry. Go back to your categories. What do you and your family use all the time? What dried items are constants on your grocery list? Figure out what size quantities you purchase those items in and get air tight containers (I prefer glass) in sizes that are a little larger than those quantities. For example, I usually buy rice in two pound bags, but I rarely run out completely before buying more. So these 34 oz glass jars are perfect for holding a new bag of rice plus what little I had leftover. I know it sounds OCD to run through the grocery store making note of how many ounces of lentils come in a bag but you'll be thankful when you are purchasing your glass containers to have that list at hand.
The key here is to only decant the stuff you use often enough to warrant regular replacing. It's easy to get carried away and want a whole wall of pretties, like this
Would I love to have a gorgeous pantry where everything is decanted into lovely glass containers? Sure...but honestly, I am at a loss for what I would fill all those jars with. I prefer to keep spices close by the stove for easy access so putting them in the pantry doesn't make sense for me. Penne and spaghetti pasta are our go to pastas so things like rotini and bowties are better stored in their boxes in a drawer.
Once you've figured out what you can decant, you can give your pantry a whole new look - and achieve that symmetry and consistency that is so visually pleasing but darn near impossible in a pantry given all the different food packaging - with the look of air tight containers.
Don't forget to label the contents! Aborio rice and orzo look mighty similar, especially to your husband :) And remember, everything you don't decant gets sorted like with like. Canned tomatoes with canned tomatoes (bonus points if you consistently buy the same variety of canned tomatoes), paper goods with paper goods, etc. Add a few of these can risers and you'll never lose anything in the back row.
You will inevitably have a bunch of random stuff that won't look pretty on a shelf and don't make sense to decant (half eaten Tostitos bags, Triscuit boxes, etc). That's where baskets come in.
A word about baskets - they are not all created equally. Take the 3 baskets below. A basket with angled sides means wasted space. You can never totally push a basket like this up against a wall or another basket just like it. You always have that little bit of angled space that goes to waste. And in a tight pantry, inches matter. Why sacrifice them on an angled basket? A deep basket might seem like a great storage solution but in my opinion the deeper the basket, the more junk gets lost at the bottom, never to be found again. That IS NOT what you want for your new, fabulously organized pantry! The ideal basket is on the shallower side (these are 11" deep) with straight sides that let you push them right up against each other in a perfect, little line of organization. It's the little things...
And of course now that I've drilled the idea of consistency and symmetry into your head, you know that you should try to use all the same kind of basket.
A few other random thoughts for organizing your pantry, especially if it's on the smaller side. A lot of these are Container Store/elfa specific but that's because I really think they have a superior product for this kind of organization.
Elfa drawers! If you have a reach-in pantry closet that's a minimum of 17" deep, you can get one of these drawer systems in there. These things are worth their weight in gold! You wouldn't believe how much they hold. Even just one stack (of 4) will change your pantry.
Elfa over the door racks! Depending on the depth of your closet and shelves you might have to opt for just the shallow baskets. Position them so they don't interfere with your shelves when the doors are closed and you can practically double the storage capacity of your reach-in pantry. In a pinch, even something like this, typically used for shoe storage, can store things like wine bottles, peanut butter jars and a whole host of those goodies. I know, I've done it :)
Lastly, no matter how big your pantry is, if you're optimizing space and installing shelving up to the ceiling, you'll likely need a stool to access the top shelves. Opt for one that folds flat when not in use so it takes up minimal space.
Well that's all I've got! Remember, categorize, edit purge then prettify through symmetry and consistency. If you follow those steps, you'll be well on your way to an organized pantry. I hope you find these tips helpful and are inspired to take on your own pantry organization project. And if you do, send pictures! I can never get enough of this stuff...
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